Michelle Keegan has spoken of her discomfort at having her parents in the audience when a steamy scene from her new TV series was aired.

The former Coronation Street actress will be seen getting up close and personal with co-star Luke Pasqualino in the opening minutes of the first episode of BBC One drama Our Girl on Wednesday night.

Keegan, 29, spoke to BBC Radio 1's Nick Grimshaw about attending a screening of the series in Manchester, which saw her parents watching the scenes of her frolicking in a bra with Pasqualino.

She said: "It was awful. I cringe anyway when watching myself, and watching it with my mum and dad in the audience, and it was that scene ... my brother was there as well and he said he sat in between them and he said he couldn't look at them, no-one said a word.

"It's not good watching it with your parents."

The actress said her being intimate with other men on screen for work was not an issue for her husband, former The Only Way Is Essex star Mark Wright.

"To be fair, he was reading the script with me, so he knew what was going to happen," she said. "So I think, also, because of Corrie and Tina was very busy in Corrie ... he's seen it so many times it becomes the norm, he is not really bothered."

In Our Girl she plays Army medic Corporal Georgie Lane, who is dispatched to Kenya on a humanitarian mission.

Keegan said the role had amplified her respect for people in the armed forces: "Don't get me wrong, you always respect people in the armed forces, but I have newfound respect for them, it is unbelievable what they do for the country."

The Manchester-born actress touched on tabloid reports about her private life, following speculation over her marriage to Wright.

She said: "It's so annoying, the thing is I don't even read it any more, it just winds me up. It is just negativity and I can't be bothered with it."

Keegan bleached her brunette locks blonde for another project, the three-part ITV drama Tina And Bobby, which sees her playing the wife of England and West Ham footballer Bobby Moore.

She has returned to her natural hair colour, but said the bleaching process took two days and left her "paranoid my hair would fall out".